


Around We Go

by InsanelyYours96



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Actual Violence, And It Never Gets Better If I Never Write More, Betrayal, Eternally Done WIth Tom's Shit, Harry is Eternal, Harry's losing it folks, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, Threats of Violence, Time Loop, You Have Been Warned, everything is temporary, except for Harry, mental breaks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:27:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22221037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsanelyYours96/pseuds/InsanelyYours96
Summary: Harry relives the Chamber of Secrets again and again.Eventually, he’s tired of it.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Diary Tom Riddle, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Horcrux/Harry Potter
Comments: 59
Kudos: 507





	1. Chapter 1

Harry relives the Chamber of Secrets again and again.

Eventually, he’s tired of it. 

The only way Tom Riddle dies is if Harry stabs the diary with a basilisk fang, and while Harry has perfected the process without being poisoned, it’s still rather exhausting. So the sixteenth time — yes, he’s that stubborn — Harry never enters the chamber. He curls up by the basilisk skin and waits. 

Tom Riddle comes out minutes or hours later, completely solid, eyes lighting on Harry with some surprise. “ _Avada Kedavra_.”

Harry sighs. Enters the chamber. 

He walks to Ginny calmly, palming the diary. She has roughly twenty minutes. 

“I believe that belongs to me, Harry Potter.” 

“I’ve destroyed it before, and I can destroy it again,” Harry retorts. “Just leave me alone.”

Riddle’s eyebrow raised. “Am I expected to believe that you can produce _Fiendfyre_ , Potter?”

It’s not like there are any more consequences to his actions. 

Harry says, “ _Fiendfyre._ ”

A Phoenix roars out of his wand, decimating the diary even as Riddle calls out, “NO!”

Harry releases the spell, but the fire continues. _Oh God,_ he thinks, and then he’s burning along with Ginny. 

“ _Avada Kedavra_ ,” Harry incants _nth_ incarnations later. He’s feeling a little self-destructive, and Riddle had shot it at him often enough that Harry figures turnabout is fair play. 

Unfortunately, it goes through Riddle. The teen gapes at him a bit, not even having introduced himself as Voldemort yet. Harry curses, annoyed, and aims the same spell at the diary. It splashes off of it and hits the wall harmlessly. 

“Seriously?” Harry demands to the world at large. “Don’t make me use _Fiendfyre_ again, because I will!”

He most certainly won’t. That had _hurt_ , even more so than the basilisk’s venom; Harry can still feel phantom flames licking at his face.

Riddle stares at him, eyes nearly black with rage. “What are you talking about?” he demands.

Harry pauses. For all the incarnations Harry’s never actually explained the situation before, and by all means Voldemort was brilliant, even as a teenager. 

So he sighs, collapses on the floor, and tells Riddle. 

How he always remembers when he reaches the antechamber, the route behind him blocked by rocks. How he always destroys the diary, and usually manages to save Ginny in doing so. How he’s pretty sure he should be _at least_ 13 now. How he’s getting sick and tired of Riddle trying to kill him when he hasn’t done a bloody thing! How he’s getting rather fed up with Fawkes' appearance, because _does that mean Dumbledore knows where we are? It’s his bird!_

And on and on Harry rants, until the chamber is vibrating around him in his rage. The anger in Riddle's eyes slowly warps into a fascinated hunger as he watches Harry lose it.

And then, after he’s finished, Harry deflates and sighs. “So, any clue how to end this stupid cycle, because it must have something to do with you?”

Tom stares for a long moment, then says, “It’s a little known phenomenon. Yet one would think Dumbledore would warn his powerful little protégée of such things…”

“I barely _know_ Dumbledore,” Harry sighs, aggrieved. “He’s the Headmaster of my boarding school. In what world would we have a personal relationship?”

Both Tom’s brows rise. “Don’t you? He’s your magical guardian, after all.” 

“My only guardians are muggle,” Harry tells him, because it isn’t like he’ll remember anyway. Then deduces, “You don’t actually have any more information than I do. You’re stalling, waiting for Ginny to die so you can have your precious body. I should just kill you already.”

“Doing the same thing over and over with the same end result is the definition of insanity, Potter. Don’t be stupid; I know far more of this world than you do. You don’t even know what a magical guardian is, for Salazar’s sake.”

Harry is curious, but he also knows this entire scenario will restart soon and he has no method to double-check Riddle’s words. So he rolls his eyes instead. 

“You honestly think I’ll believe anything you say? You’ve killed me a good number of times now. That kinda eliminates you as trustworthy.”

“What other choice do you have, darling?”

Harry snarls at the pet name and climbs to his feet. _"Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four!"_

Riddle’s eyes narrow. Harry hopes he’s good and afraid.

The basilisk comes.


	2. Chapter 2

The next time Harry has a basilisk fang poised over the diary, he asks a question. “What’s a magical guardian?”

“Relinquish my diary and I will tell you,” Riddle offers. His voice was calm and even, but his hands tremble. Harry enjoyed the sign of panic more than he probably should.

“Tell me what I want to know, and I will.”

Tom hesitates for a moment, and Harry jerks the fang down. Tom made a choking noise and spoke quickly, words stumbling over each other, a far cry from previously polished vowels and consonants. 

“A magical guardian is the person assigned to orphaned wizards or witches. Naturally this only applies to those born to magical parents, as they are the ones that have to set up such contracts. Typically the responsibility falls to godparents.”

“When muggleborns enter Hogwarts, the Headmaster gains a similar role, though his only responsibility is to ensure the welfare of all of his charges. Magical guardians, on the other hand, are meant to inform their wards of their place in the wizarding world. If they are high-born, they are taught pureblood traditions. If not, they’re educated on wizarding holidays, at the very least, and of course told about magic if they’re too young to have known. They have the final say over where their ward lives, controls their finances, and acts in the stead of their best interests. Their word is law in all magical matters concerning a child.”

Harry blinks. “You said the Headmaster is my magical guardian, but how would you know that?”

“Ginevra knows,” Riddle explains. “It is common knowledge, unsurprisingly. You are famous; people talk.”

“So you mean to say—”

But there is no more conversation to be had. Riddle makes a sharp gesture, and he doesn’t have a wand but the diary still shoots out of Harry’s grasp.

He grits his teeth in frustration. Magic without a wand, yet another thing he didn’t know was possible. Well aside for accidental magic, but Harry had never been in control of those fits.

He glances at Ginny. Time was almost up.

“Make it interesting this time, won’t you? _Avada Kedavra_ is so _dull._ ”

Riddle stares at Harry. “You think I can manage the killing curse without a wand? That’s… flattering.” 

Harry frowns at him. “So there are limits?”

Riddle bares his teeth. “Why don’t you ask ‘next time’.”

Suffocation is not a pleasant death. 

Harry’s next twenty-ish incarnations are a mess of threatening Riddle into teaching him magic. The other teen is incredibly sly; he always ends up killing Harry, sometimes going so far as to act regretful. It’s always when he’s feigning regret that he uses _Avada Kedavra._ Otherwise, he does get creative; the first time Harry’s manages to sincerely piss him off, he learns how it feels to die being skinned alive.

 _Fiendfyre_ is still worse, though he’s beginning to see _Avada Kedavra_ as a mercy.

Before Riddle manages to off him Harry has typically learned something new, whether it be a spell or a faucet of the wizarding world he was previously clueless about. Naturally he doesn’t trust everything that comes out of Riddle’s mouth—Harry himself is a very good liar when being threatened—but the more he learns, the more fascinated he finds himself. 

The idea that he should have known most of this before even coming to Hogwarts sticks in the back of his mind. Magical guardians are supposed to protect their wards. Headmasters are supposed to ensure all of their students wellbeing. Albus Dumbledore had failed on both counts. 

_If he’s actually my magical guardian_ , Harry reminds himself. Riddle could have been lying, or Ginny could have had incorrect information.

Still, the resentment festers and grows. 

The first time they ‘duel’ Harry knows he is hopelessly outmatched. None of his spells even touch Riddle, a simple _Protego_ holding them free. Riddle watches, amused, as he tires himself, and then he strikes. 

_“Avada Kedavra.”_

“Teach me how to cast _Protego_ ,” Harry demands. 

Riddle’s lips twist in condescension. “That is on the Fifth Year curriculum, little boy.”

Harry’s eyes darken, his lips twisting. “When is _Fiendfyre_ taught?” He asks, brandishing his wand at the diary. And like always, Riddle is dubious—but the threat is enough. 

This time, he manages to last five minutes once Riddle decides to strike back. A new record. 

“Can you not?” Harry sighs. He knows what that particular look of Riddle's means, and he isn’t really in the mood to be tortured. Of course he never is, but in this moment Harry is not manic, not furious, not determined. Instead he’s drained. He hopes that if he dies he might stay dead. 

He knows the solution to end the time loop. He’s had enough clues along the way, and there’s really just one variation he hasn’t tried.

Harry doesn’t know what’s holding him back, really. He’s watched Ginny die many times by now—he’s been the cause of it himself, even. 

But he had always known it wouldn’t last. And now, if he simply steps back and allows Riddle to kill her, if he somehow convinces Riddle not to kill him, Ginny’s death would be on his head. 

If he didn’t die and Riddle didn’t die, the cycle would break. It _had_ to. 

Perhaps Harry could sever Riddle’s connection to Ginny without killing her. Could they _all_ live? Or did the criteria have to do with Riddle having a body of his own, which was only possible with Ginny’s death. Unless… 

But no, Harry wouldn’t let Riddle leach off of his magic, or life force, or whatever he was doing. 

Harry had a long time to come to the conclusion that Ginny was at least partially to blame for this situation. Unlike him, she had been raised in the wizarding world, and to a pureblood family to boot. Yet she had trusted a magical item that thought for itself. Harry himself had been extremely wary the first time he wrote in Tom Riddle’s diary, and he had stopped after seeing the memory with Hagrid. 

(If Riddle could pull him into the book, perhaps he could trap him there too.)

Then again, Ginny was only eleven. 

(Harry doesn’t know how he feels about taking her age into account, when nobody has ever done so for him.)

(Harry was _only twelve._ Or thirteen. Maybe even fourteen, who even knew anymore.) 

Harry has decided not to try ending the cycle until he can best Riddle in a duel. 

It’s a long time coming.

He should be expecting the betrayal when it comes—Merlin knows he should, he’s been tricked by Riddle so many times. 

The difference is that in the Chamber Harry has never trusted Riddle by any measure. But after five months together, both knowing the other, he’s made a mistake. 

“It’s nothing personal, Harry,” Tom says, stroking his hair as he bleeds out. “You’re just too much of a threat. I would’ve liked to keep you…”

Long fingers trail over his cheekbones. His lips. His fluttering eyes. 

Harry can’t breathe properly anymore, just uncontrollable little gasps. He opens his eyes slowly, and reaches out with his magic as Tom watches the life drain out of him. His wand slides from Tom’s loose grip, and the boy tuts at him, faintly amused. 

“Oh darling, you shouldn’t waste your strength.” 

Harry meets his eyes. Everything he has done was worthless. All that time, and he would still die at Tom’s hands—but he would make sure Tom died at his, as well. 

He doesn’t have the strength to speak. They’re so far from the Chamber now, Harry thinks this death might be his last. 

A part of him relishes the thought. Another cries out in terror. 

' _Fiendfyre,_ ' Harry thinks very hard. His spluttering magic erupts, sparking, and Tom ignites with a scream. 

Harry had forgotten the smell of burning flesh. He cries as the spell peels back and finds him. He’s not as numb as he had thought—he feels it as it carries him into the afterlife. 

Burning alive for the second time is just as bad as the first. 

Harry opens his eyes. 

The chamber door is in front of him. 

He sinks to his knees and cries. Over the fact that it isn’t over. Over his stupidity, his naïveté, his trusting Tom even for a moment. 

The Dursley’s broke something in Harry long ago, but it’s Tom Riddle that shatters him. At least the Dursley’s had never pretended to care. 

He doesn’t _want_ revenge, is the thing. He’s already gotten it. 

But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to see Riddle suffer. 

Harry enters the chamber. He walks to Ginny, ducks down, and grabs the diary. He turns to the post Tom Riddle is lurking at, and points his wand at the diary. 

“Hello Riddle. Either release your hold on Weasley in the next ten seconds, or I will destroy your diary with Fiendfyre and quite possibly take Hogwarts down with you. Ten. Nine. Eight.”

“Harry Potter?” Riddle asks innocently over his counting. “Why would you do that?”

“Seven. Six.”

Riddle drops the act. “There’s no reason to be hasty—”

“Five. Four. Three.” 

“You would _kill yourself_?”

“Two. One.”

Green eyes clash with brown. Harry raises his wand. “ _Fiend—_ “

“Alright!” Tom shouts. “Alright, you stupid boy, you win!”

Winning, thinks Harry, would have been being clever enough to disconnect Riddle from Ginny himself. Winning would have been actually dying, instead of living through this nightmare again. 

Tom Riddle vanished into his diary, and Ginny’s skin flushes with life. 

Harry stares blankly at the book in his hands and swallows the acid in his throat. 

He waits one minute, and then five, and then ten. But the diary remains still, making no countermove, and Ginny’s breathing remains strong and steady. 

Now Harry needs a story to tell Dumbledore and a place to hide Riddle’s diary. 

Like hell was he about to risk it being destroyed.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment on your way out. :)


End file.
